Migrants and refugees walk to board an Athens-bound ferry at the southeastern Greek island of Kos in August 2015. Alexander Zemlianichenko/Press Association. All rights reserved.
On 19 September 2016, the international community will have an historic opportunity to debate the complex and multifaceted issues related to “large movements of refugees and migrants” in a high-level United Nations summit. The member states of the United Nations have rarely agreed at the highest level that migration is a suitable subject for formal, multilateral discussions. Instead the issue has been relegated to ‘non-binding’, ‘voluntary’, ‘informal’, or ‘state-led’ processes outside United Nations auspices, where a series of confidence-building measures on migration, often linked with development, have straggled on for years.
This autumn, the member states of the United Nations will come together to pledge to fully protect the human rights of all refugees and migrants, regardless of status. They will commit to a “people-centred, sensitive, humane, dignified, gender-responsive and prompt reception” of large movements of migrants and refugees. It is an historic opportunity to rally governments and others to rights-based action on a defining issue of our times.
